South West Four promoters resist legal challenge from Wandsworth council

The festival has come to an agreement with the council, which was looking to reduce noise levels.

Wandsworth Council has dropped its legal challenge against London's South West Four festival.

This year's edition of the festival will go ahead in Clapham Common across the August bank holiday weekend. Its 2017 license had been granted by Lambeth council, but the neighbouring Wandsworth council and one of its residents, seeking a reduction in the festival's noise levels, had appealed the granting of the license to Camberwell Magistrates' Court. (175 members of the public had written in favour of the event.) The appeal was dropped when South West Four agreed to reduce noise levels at two monitoring points in Wandsworth.

"Despite the overwhelming backing of the event, Lock N Load sought to find an amicable solution to this situation," says Andrew Mattle of Lock N Load, the promoter behind South West Four. "This was achieved by offering reductions in sound levels at two monitoring points in Wandsworth. Lock N Load are very confident that this will not affect the levels that can be reached during the event itself and that these will emulate those achieved in 2016. Lock N Load will now proceed with organising South West Four in order to continue offering a world class festival for all the visitors that attend each year."

Gareth Hughes, a licensing barrister who worked with Lock N Load on resisting the appeal, said: "This was a highly unusual appeal brought by one council against the decision of a neighbouring council. Wandsworth claimed to be speaking on behalf of many local residents but in fact only one person objected to the grant of the licence at the hearing while over 100 local residents living around the Common and local businesses were in support, [with] many asking for sound levels to be increased."

Carl Craig, Sven Väth, Loco Dice, Audion and Sasha are among the acts playing at this year's South West Four, which will run on August 26th and 27th.